The motto of the vampires is that humans have to deal with problems on their own. But when Levka and his friends risk all to save human girls, he is injured and so the adventure begins. A cruise. A human girl who is terrified of water. And a vampire who has targeted her for his mate. But she has some secrets of her own.

Forced to take a cruise ship to babysit her foster sister, Caitlin has to face her own demons. But add to that her foster sister's and her friend's antics and Caitlin's inability to use her witch's magic over water and she has little hope to enjoy this trip. Until she meets a wheelchair-bound teen and wants to make friends with him in the worst way.

Levka and his friends make a hasty retreat from Dallas before the vampire elders stake them for getting involved in human affairs--again. But when he meets Caitlin on the cruise ship, hating that he's so weak after being injured so severely that he has to use a wheelchair, he finds their troubles have just begun.

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Excerpt:

Chapter 1

Two horrified girls’ screams penetrated the thick fog that cloaked Dallas early that spring morning, heating Levka’s blood. In the distance, the faint sound of beating drums resonated from one of the local bars in the otherwise deserted warehouse district.

In warning, Arman touched Levka’s shoulder. “The elders forbid us to interfere in the mortals’ affairs.”

Levka glared at his lifelong friend. “Since when have we gone strictly by the league’s rules?”

“The last time we got involved, they said they’d punish us severely—maybe even banish us from the city—despite our royal ties. There has even been talk of terminating those of us who cause any more trouble.”

“Let the league watch and do nothing to help these people then. Punish me if they have to, but after my sister and parents were murdered, and I did nothing to prevent it—”

“You couldn’t have prevented it, as young as you were. Besides, that was over nine-hundred years ago.”

“I have a good memory.”

“And you hassle Stasio for living in the past.”

Levka ignored his friend’s jibe. He knew the girls had gotten themselves into the predicament all on their own without any help from anyone else. Like the league said, mortals had to deal with their own difficulties if they were to grow and flourish. Still, the girls’ sobs tore at his soul, the same mournful wailing he couldn’t vanquish from his mind when his mother and older sister had pleaded for their lives so many centuries ago Yet the girls screaming made it seem like yesterday.

The league be damned.

Levka vanished and reappeared in the vicinity of the screams, where more factory warehouses stood idle at two in the morning, except for a dingy club hidden from sight, two blocks away.

Four male teens dressed in jeans and grungy jackets—all appearing about the same age as Levka—threatened two girls with knives. “Take off your clothes or we’ll cut them off,” the heaviest-set of the boys growled, his fat cheeks flaming red, his beady eyes narrowed.
Teary-eyed, one of the girls unzipped her jacket while the other unbuttoned her coat, their fingers shaking.

“Please…,” the girl in the zippered jacket said, her mascara dripping down her face in black rivulets, her gaudy crimson lips quivering.
Levka stepped out of the fog, appearing just a few feet away from the thugs. “Can I join the party?”

Instantly, all eyes were upon him.

“Where did you come from?” a lanky kid with curly black hair asked, waving a ten-inch blade in Levka’s direction.

“It’s a private party,” the biggest guy said, threatening Levka with his knife. “Get lost unless you want us to carve you a new face.”

“Such bravado from ones so young.” Levka clapped his hands together slowly in mock appreciation.

The big guy’s face turned redder. “Let’s teach this bastard a lesson.”
Levka gave him a small smile and a slight bow of his head. “Teach me all you know.”

Before anyone moved, Levka’s three friends strolled out of the mist like Gothic specters, all dressed in black jeans, all wearing black ankle-length coats, and demonic smiles. Ruric, the curly redhead of the bunch, who Levka swore looked like a Viking warrior, waved his arms in a martial arts-like dance, pretending to yield two light sabers and said, “Let the force be with you, my friends.”

Arman shook his head, his dark brown hair sweeping across his shoulders, his brown eyes nearly black. “We really shouldn’t get involved, Levka. I feel it in my blood. We’ll be in the worst kind of trouble this time.”

Stasio pulled his long sandy blond hair into a tail. “I don’t like the odds. Fighting the Marcher Barons along our borders in Wales was much more to my liking.”

Levka gave him a warning look, not that it ever did any good. Stasio never seemed able to keep up with the changing centuries.

“How scary. A bunch of long-haired Goths, who don’t know when to mind their own business!” the leader of the bullies shouted. “Let me add a little blood to your costumes to make you really look creepy.”

“Certainly,” Stasio said, his voice dark and menacing, his stockier build readied for a fight. “We could always use a little extra blood.”
The girls trembled in their heels, and they looked as scared of Levka and his friends as they were of the thugs. Levka tried to diffuse the situation without bloodshed because he knew if it came to that, the league would come down harder on them. “Go. Leave. There are four of us now, and you’re well out-matched.”

“Ha! Well, you won’t be any match for this!” The big guy yanked out a gun hidden in his denim jacket.

“That’s the way to show him, Joey!” the lanky boy said, and lunged at Ruric with his knife.

Ruric smiled, the look pure evil, and swung his ghostly light sabers at the guy. He moved quicker than the mortal’s eye could see, grabbed the boy’s arm, and twisted hard. Snap.

Screaming in pain, the teen dropped the knife. He grabbed his arm and ran several paces backward. “He…he broke my damned arm!”

One of the other thugs stalked toward Arman, probably figuring he was a wimp because he didn’t want to fight.

Stasio slipped in closer to the blond. “Hey, he looks kinda like Johanne Von Kruger, eh? German Nazi, killer extraordinaire? Even has the butch that looks like his, only the blue streak down the middle kinda destroys the tough guy image.”

Levka rolled his eyes. Everywhere he went, Stasio had to give a living history lesson.

Ignoring Stasio and concentrating on Arman, the Nazi-looking kid waved a blade inches from his face.

Arman straightened his back and towered over all of them by a couple of inches, his willowy appearance deceiving others into believing he had little strength. “No good will come of this, I say.”

“Afraid?” the boy asked, baring his yellowed teeth.

“Yes, of what I might do to you.”

The guy leapt at Arman, thrusting with his knife into the misty gloom. From behind the creep with the curly black hair, Arman said, “What about you? Want to fight?”

The guy let out a frightened cry and bolted down the deserted street.
“Don’t run with a knife,” Arman said under his breath. “My mother always told me that.”

The boy tripped on his own two feet. He fell to the asphalt, jabbing the knife into his chest.

“Guess my mother was right.”

The big teen shoved the gun in one of the girl’s faces. “I’m going to kill her, if you don’t leave, now!”

With his finger squeezing the trigger, he was shaking so hard, it was only a matter of seconds before he fired the bullet. At this close range, he couldn’t miss, and the girl could very well die.

Without hesitation, Levka faded into nothingness, then reappeared between the gun and the girl. The bulky guy fired the gun, though whether it was because he wanted to or because Levka’s sudden action scared him, Levka would never know. The bullet ripped into Levka’s chest, tearing a hole through his shirt, skin, and blood vessels. The pain traveled through his nerve endings, clouding his mind, blurring his vision. Even the girls’ screams behind him quickly faded.
His movement sluggish, Levka leapt toward the gun-toting teen. A second bullet shattered one of Levka’s ribs, and a third lodged in his liver, or at least he thought it had. The fourth and fifth went heavenward when Stasio grabbed the guy’s neck and yanked his gun arm upward.

The gloom closed in on Levka. The pain filled his entire chest, burning, sharp, excruciating. For a second, he wondered why he had taken another bullet for a mortal. Every time hurt as much as the first.

The gray mist faded to black, and he was semi-aware of falling hard on his knees.

“Get the girls to somewhere safe, Arman,” Ruric ordered.

“What about Levka?”

“Levka? He’ll live, if the league members don’t have us staked. And remember to wipe the mortals’ minds.”

Stasio snorted. “It would serve them right to remember.”

Levka felt his body lift off the ground. Opening his eyes, he saw Stasio holding him and tried to give an order.

Arman did instead. “Wipe only enough of the experience to make them remember what is safe for us. Maybe they’ll learn.”

Ruric bowed his head. “Done.” He ran toward the kid with the knife wound, passed out in the street.

“Meet you at our club house,” Stasio told them.

“Club house,” Levka moaned.

“Yeah, buddy. I’m afraid the league will want our heads for this. The club house is the only safe place for us until you get strong enough, and we can figure out where to go until things cool down.”

“The girls—”

“Safe. Arman will get them to someone safe.”

“Their memories—”

Stasio shook his head. “You know, even when you’re half dead, you are so bossy just like General Patton was on the battlefield. Let me be in charge for the moment, all right?”

Levka attempted a smile, but the pain in his chest intensified.

“We’ll get you better in no time, Levka. Just keep giving me those evil smirks of yours, and I’ll know you’re going to live.”